Reel Deal: Never too old to play with Toy Story’ pals

Friday

Jun 25, 2010 at 12:01 AMJun 25, 2010 at 9:46 AM

In the first “Toy Story,” 15 years ago (which feels more like 15 minutes ago), Andy was an imaginative little guy with a toy box team. The boy and his toys have had a lot of adventures – together, and when no one’s looking, all on their own. But playtime’s mostly over now that Andy’s all grown up and going to college.

Robert McCune

Great leaders defy odds. They face tremendous adversity and overcome it. They seem destined to lose, but win anyway.

And the truly great ones never do it alone.

Beacons of strength and courage, they rally their team. They carry their comrades, but aren’t too proud to be carried either. We root for them in life, and of course, in the movies.

They don’t all look or sound the same. They could be motivators, muckrakers, rebels, radicals, politicians, preachers, inventors, innovators or athletes.

Or they could be toys.

At a theater near you

Toys, like professional athletes, don’t have a lot of time to truly shine. Their window of greatness is small and closing fast.

While most athletes, with constant wear and tear on the body, are lucky if they can play past their 40s, a toy’s in its prime only as long as its owner is willing to play with it.

Instead of being benched, aging toys are shelved. Then, it’s the attic, the donation box or the landfill.

And it all happens in the blink of an eye – which, if you’re a parent (or a toy), is exactly how quickly childhood passes us by.

In the first “Toy Story” 15 years ago (which feels more like 15 minutes ago), Andy was an imaginative little guy with a toy box team that included a cocky space ranger (Buzz Lightyear), a charismatic cowboy (Woody), a self-conscious dinosaur (Rex), a Slinky Dog, a Potato Head and a piggy bank (Hamm).

The boy and his toys have had a lot of adventures – together, and when no one’s looking, all on their own. But playtime’s mostly over now that Andy’s all grown up and going to college.

His toys, and of course his mom, knew this day was coming. But it doesn’t make it any easier.

As Andy abandons his childhood bedroom for a dorm room, its contents are destined for one of four piles – college, donations, attic or out with the trash.

The toys (given life once again by voice actors Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack and Don Rickles) can pretty much live with any option but the last.

After a last-ditch effort at playtime fails, the toys brace themselves for storage – where we know they’ll continue to have their own adventures, while just being there for Andy, if and when he needs them.

Then Woody ends up in the “college” box – but not for long, as a motherly mix-up sends the other toys to the curb, with the trash truck bearing down fast.

Miffed that they’ve been tossed aside – and unswayed by Woody’s sensibilities – the toys decide to “donate” themselves, climbing into a box set for Sunnyside Daycare.

Woody goes along for the ride, but only to try to convince his playmates that they’re needed back at Andy’s attic.

The fearless cowboy leader’s motto has always been “no toy gets left behind,” but a warm reception and the smooth talking of an old huggable teddy bear, Lotso, has the toys convinced the grass is truly greener at Sunnyside, which leads Woody to escape on his own.

But his prodigal return is detoured by a loving little girl named Bonnie, who plays with care and creativity.

Once Woody and his longtime toy pals discover the dark secret of Sunnyside, things get really intense – as this “Story” becomes a fight for survival.

None can really stack up with our favorite plastic pals, who prove once again that you can teach an old toy new tricks.

But all tricks aside (including 3-D, an unnecessary addition to an already awesome masterpiece in animation), there’s a sensational story – which, I’m willing to admit, caught in my throat more than once, left me maybe a little more than misty-eyed in the end, and most of all, made me want to plop down in the floor with my own son and his toys ... for as long as I possibly can.

On DVD

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about rugby.

It looks a little like a cross between American football and soccer. The players don’t wear pads or helmets, and they generally beat the crap out of each other. They score by crossing a goal line with the oval-shaped ball or booting it over a goal post.

But that’s OK, because “Invictus” isn’t really a rugby movie anyway.

Instead, the sport is more a symbol of South Africa’s historic post-apartheid reconciliation under President Nelson Mandela.

In the year between Mandela’s historic 1994 election and the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the former freedom fighter (jailed for 27 years on an island prison) is looking for a way to unite his people.

He sees an opportunity in a bottom-of-the-heap rugby team – South Africa’s Springboks – and its captain.

The Springboks, with the exception of the team’s lone black player, are a symbol of apartheid for many black South Africans, who tend to root for whichever team’s opposing the Springboks out of spite.

The rugged, square-jawed white rugby players look a lot like the thugs – and may even be the same thugs – who chased them out of their homes and tormented them under the system of government-sponsored racism and segregation.

Mandela, who more than anyone might be expected to raise a fist, instead extends an open hand to his former foes.

His years in prison, busting rocks and sleeping on the floor of a compact cell, were spent in meditation and have strengthened a spirit of forgiveness and a penchant for peace. It’s a new outlook that he hopes is contagious in his country – scarred and weakened by years of separateness and in-fighting.

He wants to give them a taste of what it would be like to stand united – to cheer for a common cause – and he wants to show the world that this new South Africa can do just that.

The team will be the Springboks. The cause: A World Cup.

President Mandela’s job in unifying South Africa is about as tough as they come – and of course it’s going to take much more than a rugby run to accomplish. But winning the hearts and minds of the people – and inspiring them to overcome even their own expectations of themselves – is a big step, and one that he gives priority.

Important advisory meetings are often interrupted with rugby results – and Mandela breaks his own security rules to interact with and motivate the resurging rugby team.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, “Invictus” stars the incomparable Morgan Freeman as Mandela, the role that’s been reserved for him for 10 years; and Matt Damon as rugby captain Francois Pienaar.

Both are exceptional in the movie, but South Africa is the star player – and ultimately has the most on the line.

So take a break from World Cup soccer, and watch a game that was about much, much more than numbers on a scoreboard.